This invention relates to a fastener for securing electrically conductive (including signal conductive), insulation coated cables such as television signal conducting cables, to support members, usually of wood.
Attachment of television cables and the like to support members of a building such as a home is primarily accomplished at the present time by using U-shaped wire staples fired from a staple gun. The wire staple and gun are simple, inexpensive and easily employed by cable installers. Unfortunately, however, such staples typically distort the cable (see FIG. 8 herein) and often even short out the cable by puncturing the insulation jacket. After installation it is extremely difficult to determine which staple or staples of the many used have caused the shorting action. Further, such wire staples themselves become distorted as they are inserted, especially if one leg engages a more dense material than the other. Moreover, such staples, after installation, have a tendency to undesirably pull back out of the wood support. Often the staples do not hold the cable securely such that the cable can move linearly and thereby scrape the insulation, or twist within the staple. Both of these are undesirable characteristics.
Because of these problems with the wire staple, another type of fastener has been developed heretofore (FIG. 9). It is formed of multiple pieces including a rectangular, molded, plastic body with two loosely inserted tiny wire nails extending through preformed openings at opposite ends of the body. This complex and relatively more expensive fastener is installed by a special installation tool. This type of fastener has a high rate of waste due to difficulty in hitting and driving the small nails, due to faulty cartridge characteristics holding the fasteners together in battery form, and other factors. The fastener is also considered to be bulky and to have poor appearance. Moreover, the small fastener nails often do not penetrate in a manner to restrain the cable against movement axially or against cable twisting, so that the cable insulation can be punctured as it slides through the fastener. And the tiny nails have a tendency to pull back out of the wood after installation. Consequently, in spite of this elaborate fastener being available, the cheap wire staple is really the industry standard, despite its defects.
The inventor herein, a television cable installer by trade, has experienced the frustration of making potentially defective installations using wire staples which are standard to the industry. He realized from his own experience and from communication with others in the trade that there is a significant need for a fastener that would be simple, relatively inexpensive, one piece in structure, capable of installation from a common staple gun, consistent in its penetration characteristics, stable against retraction, usable in a battery type arrangement, not having the cable distortion and shorting potential which characterize the present technology, and being rust or corrosion resistant.